1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an energy-supplying, signal-transmitting and/or material-supplying method and apparatus for supplying energy, signals and/or materials to a linearly-traveling mechanism such as a ball screw drive mechanism, a chain/belt drive mechanism and the like, and more specifically, to a method of and apparatus for using ribbon cables/hoses which are useful to supply energy such as electricity and the like from a non-moving section to a movable section and/or transmit and receive signals to and from the movable section and/or supply and/or discharge materials from the non-moving section to the movable section.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, although the cable guide for a linearly-traveling mechanisms is used in various industrial fields such as the output devices of computers and OA (Office Automation) equipment, automatic sliding doors, highrise warehouses, overhead traveling cranes, semiconductor manufacturing equipment operated in a clean room, automatic animal/plant factories and the like, when it is intended to supply electricity, energy, or a printing ink liquid and the like in a sufficient amount from a non-moving section side of a building, fixed table and the like to a movable section side, they must be supplied through solid cables/hoses which are formed to a certain shape because they cannot be supplied by a wireless supplying system.
Although color printers and the like have a plurality of ink hoses which extend from a non-moving section to a movable section, since they are disorderly bound and only tentatively fixed by bands or the like arbitrarily, a problem arises in that maintenance is needed for the wear, break and the like of the ink hoses which are caused when they interfere with each other by being twisted or caught by a protrution. Thus, it has been desired to fundamentally solve the problem. In addition, when electric energy and the like are directly supplied to the linearly traveling mechanism making use of a wire, since the electric energy is supplied through a cable/hose which is curled, loosely hung or loosely crept, the connecting portion and bending portion of the cable/hose are twisted or crushed and stress is concentrated to the portions. Since the cable/hose is clogged, broken and subjected to contact failure, it is handled as an expendable supply with a short lifetime.
Japanese Patent Publication No.8-149651 discloses the cable guide for a linearly-traveling mechanism by which the above problems are solved. The above invention serving as a base of the present invention provides a small cable guide which has sufficient durability even if it is used to a mechanism which reciprocates a total traveling distance longer than 500 km at a high speed of at least 2 m/sec.
Although the above invention discloses a technology for transmitting and receiving electric energy and electric signals, it discloses nothing as to an ink-liquid supply hose (cable) in inkjet printers and the like.
Since the inkjet printers and the like do not require a high speed motion higher than 2 m/sec. and their total traveling distance is within 100 km, a material-supplying apparatus which is simpler and can be easily mounted and dismounted has been desired for this type of the linearly-traveling mechanism.
Further, although the above invention has a short right-to-left traveling distance of about 1 m, when the aforesaid long cable guide which is used to a relatively long reciprocating distance of 2-5 m is disposed in a hollow space, there is also a problem that the cable guide is slacked as a whole by the weight of a cable itself and the like.
In addition, with only the disposition of the aforesaid cable guide, there is a further problem of safety in that when the operator approaches the space where the cable travels together with a movable section, the operator is liable to be caught by the traveling cable and get hurt.